Contents

I. Political Science
Branislav Radeljic, University of East London
The Regional Implications ofKosovo's Policy oflndependence .......... .. 1
Vladislav Sotirovic, Mykolas Romeris University
Macedonia between Greek, Bulgarian, Albanian and Serbian national
Aspirations, 1870-1912 .............................................................................. 17
II. literature
Dusan Pajin, University of Arts in Belgrade
Byron and Andric in Sintra ....................................... ... . . .. ............. ......... ... 41
Vladimir Zoric, University of Nottingham
Calling on the Edge of Time: History in Serbian Prose and
Oral Tradition ................. ......................... ................................................... 51
Adrijana Marcetic, University of Belgrade
The Khazar Face ........................................................................................ 61
Aleksandar Pavlovic, University of Nottingham
Rereading the Kosovo Epic: Origins of the "Heavenly Serbia" in the
Oral Tradition ........................................................................... .................. 83
Vladimir Pistalo, Becker College
Tesla, A Portrait Among the Masks .......................................................... 97
111. Poetry
Gordana Pe!akoviC 1 05
Guardians ofBeauty 106
Delaying ..... .... ....... .... :: ::: ::. : I 07
Tree and Man .. .. .. . . ... .. ...... ...... ... I 08
Intermezzo ........ ... ... .. .....
IV. Book Reviews
Ivo Andric. The Slave Girl and Other Stories about Women.
Ed. Radmila Gorup
f:V asa Mihailovich) .................................................................................. 109
Jelena Milojkovic-Duric. Usponi srpske kulture: Knjiievni, muzicki, i
likovni Zivot 1900-1918
f:Vasa Mihailovich) .................................................... ............................... 110
Miroslav Michael Dordevic. Founding of Serbian Unity Congress 1990
f:V asa Mihailovich) .............................................................................. ,... 111
Mateja Matejic. Down the Stream of the River of Life
f:Vasa Mihai1ovich) .................................................................................. 112
Aleksandra Mokranjac. fllusionism
(Svetlana Velmar-Jankovic) .................................................................... 113
Grozdana Olujic. Glasovi u vetru
(Radmila Gorup) ... .. .. .. ....................... .............................. ..... .. .. ............... 116
Krinka Vidakovic Petrov. Srbi u Americi i njihova periodika
(Vasa Mihailovich) .................................................................................. 119
IV. In Memoriam
Ruiica Popovitch-Krekic, Mount St. Mary's College
(Lilien Filipovitch-Robinson) .................................................................. 121
Macedonia between Greek, Bulgarian, Albanian, and
Serbian National Aspirations, 1870-1912*
Vladislav B. Sotirovic
Mykolas Romeris University
During the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th cen-
tury Macedonia was one of the most disputed territories and an "apple of dis-
cord" on the Balkan Peninsula. All of Macedonia's neighbors and their na-
tional states set their territorial aspirations upon Macedonia as a way to solve
their own national questions in this part of the Balkans. They based their
claims on both ethno-linguistic and historic rights of their own nations. His-
toric-geographic Macedonia was the most important and, in fact, the crucial
moot point in the Balkans, where Serbian, Albanian, Bulgarian, and Greek
nationalism was interweaving and struggling against each other.
1
Particularly
during the period from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the
First World War within the framework of the territorial aspirations of the
states and nations that emerged in the Balkans following the disintegration of
the Qttoman Empire; the so-called "Macedonian Question" was in fact the
most urgent, hot, and significant point of their disagreements and frictions. In
other words, the territory of Macedonia was the "crossroad" where territorial
claims and nationalism of east Balkan nations became interwoven and di-
rected against each other. National aspirations and disagreements with regard
to Macedonia were the crucial reasons for the final political split among the
east Balkan states and nations and their participation on opposite sides during
the Great War of 1914--18.
The main research topics addressed in this article are: (i) National ideas of
the Serbs, Albanians, Bulgarians, and Greeks with regard to the territory of
Macedonia and its inhabitants, (ii) Bulgarian Exarchate (1870), "San Stefano
This article is written as a part of the COST Action IS0803: "Remaking Eastern Borders in
Europe: A Network Exploring Social, Moral, and Material Relocations of Europe's Eastern
Peripheries." The research on the topic and writing the text are financed by the COST Action.
1
"Nationalism is a political principle according to which political unity (i.e., state) should be
overlapped with national unity (i.e., nation)," Ernest Gellner Nations et nationalisme, (Paris:
Editions Payot, 1989), 13.
Serbian Studies: journal of the North American Society for Serbian Studies 23(1 ): 1 7-40, 2009.
18 Vladislav B. Sotirovic
Bulgaria" (1878), and the "Macedonian Question," and (iii) The "Macedonian
Question" from the Berlin Congress (1878) to the outbreak of the Balkan
Wars (1912).
Problems with regard to the question of Macedonia in terms of Serbian,
Albanian, Bulgarian, and Greek national aspirations and diplomatic activities
are covered in this article from the time of the establishment of the Bulgarian
Exarchate in 1870 (the name of the national Bulgarian autocephalous church)
created by the highest authorities of the Ottoman Empire to the beginning of
the Balkan Wars (1912).
Territory and People
The term Macedonia has had different understandings throughout history.
During the time of Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon, 356-323,
reign 336-323 BC), the Kingdom of Macedonia was considered to be an area
encompassing present-day territories of Vardar, Aegean and Pirin Macedonia,
western Thrace, southern Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija, and
parts of Albania and Epirus. According to Nicolaos K. Martis, in narrow geo-
graphical terms, ancient Macedonia occupied the lands of southern parts of
present-day Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (without Skopje/Scupi)
and northern Greece up to Mt. Olympus and just before the Maritza River.
2
The Romans used the term Macedonia for their province in the central Bal-
kans which incorporated present-day Albania, and in early Byzantine times
Macedonia was a separate theme, one of the Byzantine administrative prov-
inces, but it was located in today's Thrace. Finally, when the Ottomans con-
quered the biggest portion of the Balkan Peninsula in the 14th century Thrace
was generally known as Macedonia. However, in a broader geographical
sense the term Macedonia refers mainly to the territory that extends from Mt.
Shara and Skopje's Crna Gora on the northwest, through Osogovo and Mt.
Rila on the north, to Mt. Rhodope on the northeast, to the Aegean Sea and the
River Aliakmon (Bistritsa) on the south, and fmally to beyond the Lakes of
Prespa and Ochrida on the southwest. In this case the area of Macedonia co-
vers a large portion of the east-central parts of the Balkan Peninsula including
the valley of the Vardar (Axios) River, the Aegean littoral from the mouth of
the Aliakmon River to the mouth of the Mesta River to the Aegean Sea, whole
2
N. K. Martis, The Falsification ofMacedonian History, (Athens: Euroekdotiki, 1984), 41.
IYIU\....'-UVIIIQ U'-\.\'Y'-'-11 '-J1'-'-1'f LJUIFJUIIUIIf I \llJUIIIUII/ UIO .... .....,..._..,...,,....,_,, ._,,...., , ...,.._, ..... ,,..,
parts of the Ochrida and Prespa Lakes, and the city of Salonica/Thessaloniki
as an administrative, economic, and cultural center of the area.
3
Macedonia is associated with the names of Philip of Macedon and Alex-
ander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon). However, Macedonia from 13 71
to 1912 was a part of the Ottoman Empire without its own administrative-
provincial name (pashalik or vilayet). Once a central part of the Ottoman Em-
pire (in the 15th century), during the peak of the glory of Ottoman history
(1521-1683) Macedonia was in fact located on the empire's periphery. How-
ever, with the decline of the Ottoman state in the 19th century the territory of
Macedonia emerged again as one of the crucial and central parts of the Otto-
man Empire. The political importance of Macedonia during the last years of
Ottoman period, and the initial period of the Republic of Turkey can be un-
derstood because of two facts: (i) the center of the Young Turk revolution
(1908) was located in this area in the city of Bitola/Monastir, and (ii) the fa-
ther of the modem Turkish state-Mustafa Kemal Atatiirk-was born in the
Macedonian capital, Thessaloniki (1881).
4
As a result of the national-political
awakening of the Serbs (in 1804), Greeks (in 1821), and Bulgarians (in 1878)
in the 19th century, they finally re-established their own national states at the
expense of the Ottoman Empire. Nevertheless, irredentist claims by Serbs,
Albanians, Greeks, and Bulgarians to the territories outside of their national
states or Ottoman administrative-provincial borders (in the case of the Alba-
nians) spawned a rivalry among them for the possession of geographical-his-
toric Macedonia whole or in parts. By the late 19th century the competition
between the Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians, and Albanians for a dominance over
the east-central portions of the Balkans based on ethnic and historic rights
took central place in their national struggles. The "Macedonian Question"
soon became the crucial standpoint of their national aspirations and multieth-
nic Macedonia turned out to be a territory of the "apple of discord."
5
3
M. MacDermott Freedom or Death: The Life of Gotse Delchev (London: Journeyman Press,
1978). It is clear that a significant portion of Albanian-claimed ethnic space of present-day west
FYR Macedonia is in fact historical part of geographic Macedonia.
4
About this period of Ottomanffurkish history see: J. von Hammer, Historija
Turskog/Osmanskog/Carstva, vol. 3, (Zagreb: Ognjen Prica, 1979), 500-68. The
(constitutional) revolution of July 1908 was the result of the military actions of the Ottoman
officers belonged to the Unionist movement of the Third (Macedonian) and Second (Thracian)
Army (J. E. Ziircher, Turkey: A Modern History, (London: I. B. Tauris and Co Ltd, 1994), 97.
5
The "Macedonian Question" was composed by three sub-questions: (i) What territory
constituted Macedonia? (ii) To which state or states it should belong? and (iii) What was a
national affiliation of the peoples from Macedonia? (D. M. Perry, The Politics of Terror: The
Macedonian Liberation Movements 1893- 1903, (Durham: Duke University Press, 1988), 2; F.
20 Vladislav B. Sotirovic
As with respect to the term and territory of Macedonia a similar confused
situation exists regarding Macedonia's inhabitants. Ottoman ruled Macedonia
had a mixed population where different ethnic groups, languages, and reli-
gions coexisted side by side even in the same villages and towns. It was a
typical agricultural region with more than 80 percent of its population being
peasants. It is estimated that in 1895 the area of geographic-historical Mace-
donia had a population of some 2,505,503. The figure increased to 2,911,700
by 1904.
6
According to Yugoslav historiography, around the year of 1900 in
Vardar Macedonia there were some 908,904 inhabitants: 175,000 Turks,
88,000 Albanians, and the rest Christians.
7
It is known that not all Muslims in
Macedonia were ethnolinguistic Turks. Many of them actually were ethnic
Albanians who were living chiefly around the city of Skopje, along the
marshes bordering the Albanian highlands, and across the plain around Bitola.
Genuine ethnolinguistic Turks, interspersed with some Circassians and othet
Turkic groups (resettled from Central Asia in order to dilute the local Balkar
Christian population) lived in the cities as well as along the river valleys. Th(
Muslim population was augmented in the late 19th century by displaced core
ligionists from the former Ottoman possessions of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Serbia, and Bulgaria. This new population lived primarily in Muslim, bu
sometimes also in religiously mixed villages along the Rivers Vardar an<
Struma and in extreme southeastern Macedonia. The Macedonian Slavic pop
ulation who adopted Islam lived in villages in the extreme eastern and westen
areas of Macedonia. The Orthodox Greeks were inhabitants of the majo
trading centers. In the course of the 19th century the majority of the Balkat
merchants were the Greeks, who were also sailors, fishermen, and peasants
The Vlachs or Aromani lived mostly in the Pindus area and in several tradin1
centers. Vlachs were linguistically as well as historically very tied to the Ro
manians. This fact actually gave a reason to the Romanians to claim parts o
Macedonia. However, many of the Vlachs were quite Hellenised and oftet
presented themselves as Greeks at least because of linguistic reason.
8
Th1
Jews inhabited the urban areas, particularly the city of Thessaloniki/Salonica
Adanir, Die Makedonische Frage: Ihre Entstehung und Entwick/ung bis 1908, (Wiesbader
Franz Steiner Verlag, 1979).
6
S. J. Shaw and E. K. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, vol. :
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976-77), 208.
7
I. Bozic, S. Cirkovic, M. Ekmecic, V. Dedijer, Istorija Jugos/avije, (Belgrade: Prosvet:
1973), 289.
8
According to Hugh Poulton, "Studies in the 1930s recorded 3000 to 4000 Vlahs in Bitol:
2000 to 3000 in Skopje, and 1500 in K r u ~ e v o which was predominantly Vlah at the time" (f
Poulton, The Balkans: Minorities and States in Conflict, (London: Minority Rights Pub;
1994), 96.
._,.._.._.,.,.._.'-II..._,,.._,.._., ... , ._..uoni..OIIUI I/ I,,._, .... ,., .... ,,, ..... ,,._. ._,.._.,._. 1 ..... , 1 0 ..... ,.... ,....,.._ , .,_. ,,..,.
Around 1900 in Salonica alone there were approximately 80,000 Jews, mak-
ing them the dominant community of the city. In addition to Slllonica, they
could be found also in Macedonia's towns of Bitola/Monastir, Shtip, Kostur,
etc.
9
The Gypsies constituted a small minority in the 19th century in Macedo-
nia and lived largely on the outskirts of the cities and towns (especially
Skopje) because Ottoman law forbade them from living in urban settlements.
They were living in fact on the periphery of society and were in general toler-
ated by all.
Christian Orthodox Slavic-speaking population constituted the majority of
Macedonia's population. They were primarily illiterate peasants and lived in
most parts of geographic-historic Macedonia, either in completely Slavic or in
mixed ethnic and religious communities. A proper national identity of Ortho-
dox Slavic speakers of Macedonia became the main reason for national strug-
gles between Serbs, Bulgarians, and Greeks. Along with the question of the
historical heritage of the ancient Macedonian Kingdom, the national identity
of Orthodox Slavic-speaking population in Macedonia, from the mid 19th
century became a crucial source and basis for territorial aspirations with re-
spect to Macedonia by Serbs, Bulgarians, and Greeks. At the turn of the 20th
century the Slavs who populated the fringe areas of Macedonia, along the
Ottoman border with Serbia and scattered villages in western Macedonia as
far south as Struga, Ochrida (Ohrid), and Bitola claimed to be Serbs. In 1834
Serbian philologist Vuk Stefanovic-Karad.Zic, for example, heard from some
merchants that around Debar and Kicevo in Macedonia there were 300 Ser-
bian villages, but the language of those people was a "Slavic language."
10
Vuk set up a thesis in 1834 that the boundaries of the Serbian population in
Albania and Macedonia (in Arnautska and Macedonia),
11
were still not
known, and, additionally, that in the southeastern regions of Macedonia the
boundaries between Serbian and Bulgarian language are not exactly defmed.
However, in reality, many Christian Orthodox Slavs who lived in Macedonia
near the border with Bulgaria tended to identify themselves as ethnolinguistic
Bulgarians.
12
Some of them who inhabited the Greek frontier with the Otto-
man Empire considered themselves to be Greek. We have to emphasize that a
religious affiliation for many inhabitants of Macedonia became in fact a real
9
S. Mezan, "Evrestvoto v Makedonia," Makedonski pregled 6 (1930): 78.
10
V. Stojancevic, "Jedna neispnjena zelja Vukova," Kovceiic 12 (1974): 74-77.
11
Vuk understood under the term "Arnautska" and Kosovo and Metohija.
12
Bulgarian collection of documents on the ethnolinguistic identity of Macedonian Slavs is
presented in Macedonia: Documents and Material, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Institute
of History, Bulgarian Language Institute, ed., (Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Science Press,
1978).
22 Vladislav B. Sotirovic
basis of their ethnic identity (for instance, Muslims can't be Greeks, Serbs, ot
Bulgarians).
Foreign diplomats, travelers, and scholars who visited or lived in Mace
dania during the 19th century and in the early 20th century usually designate(
the Slavic-speaking population of Macedonia as a Bulgarian one.
13
Sami-be)
Frasheri, an Albanian geographer, referred to the Slavs of Macedonia as Bul
garians, as did various Bulgarian scholars and travelers. He at the same time
in his famous book, Albania: What She Has Been, What She Is, What Sh1
Shall Be? (original in German, 1899), bitterly protested against the identifica
tion of Albanian Muslims, either in Macedonia or Albania, Kosovo an<
Metohija, as Turks and the Albanian Christian Orthodox population as th1
Roums. He also resented Greek attempts to Hellenize and thus separate
Albanian Orthodox population from the rest of the Albanians and Albania it
order for Greece to annex Toskeria (Southern Albania).
14
However, the
like M. J. Andonovic and Tihomir Dordevic, considered them to be originall:
Serbs, while the Greeks like Cleanthes Nicolaides called them Greeks.
15
Ther'
were also a few people who shared the opinion that Macedonia's Slavs wer
from a national-identity point of view an "amorphous mass of people"-nei
ther Bulgarian nor Greek nor Serbian.
16
The ethnolinguistic and ethnic minority situation in Ottoman Macedoni
was one of the most complex within the whole region of the Balkan Penin
sula. Macedonia was the last Balkan region to be liberated from Ottoman at
thority and to be incorporated into Balkan successor states after the Ottoman
lost almost all their European/Balkan territorial possessions at the beginnin
of the 20th century (1912-13). Finally, according to the censuses ofOttoma
citizens
17
done during the realm of the Grand sultan and caliph Abdul Rami
II (1876-1909), there was an equal number of Muslim and Christian papule
tion in Macedonia as evidenced in the next table:
13
A. H. Smith, Fighting the Turk in the Balkans: An American 's Adventures with t1
Macedonian Revolutionists, (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1908), 3; L. Grogan, The Life
J D. Bouchier, (London, 1926), 117, and others.
14
S. B. Frascheri, Was war Albanien, was ist es, was wird es werden? (Vienna, 1913), 29-30.
15
Sami-bey Frasheri, Dictionnaire universelle d'histoire et geographe, I-IV, 1889-98; M.
Andonovic, Makedonski cu Sloveni Srbi (Belgrade, 1913); T. Georgewitch, Macedom
(London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1918).
16
J. Cvijic, Remarks on the Ethnography of the Macedonian Slavs, (London: Horace Cc
1906); K. Hron, Das Volkstum der Slawen Makedoniens, 1890 (reprint Skopje, 1966).
17
We have to that the Ottoman statistics of populations in Ottoman provinces or
general of the Ottoman Empire are of dubious validity and could only provide some ba:
indicators of the ethnic composition on the territory.
-_------- ------''--'=''-'-"' uuo"a"a", t'IUdlllafl, ana ::.ero1an Aspirations 13
Table 1. Macedonian Population, 1882-1906
1882 1895 1904 1906
Muslims 1,083,130 1,137,315 1,508,507 1,145,849
Greeks (Orthodox) 534,396 603,249 307,000 623,197
Bulgarians 704,574 692,742 796,479 626,715
(Orthodox)
Greek Catholics 2,311 3,315 No data 2,928
V1achs (Orthodox) No data No data 99,000 26,042
Serbs (Orthodox) No data No data 100,717 No data
Jews and others 151,730 68,432 99,997 30,594
Total 2,476,141 2,505,503 2,911,700 2,455,325
The Ottoman census of 1906 regarding the main part of Macedonia pro-
vides an exaggerated number for the Muslim population including and ethno-
linguistic (Muslim) Albanians, but it can be useful to estimate the relative
number of Greeks, Serbs, and Bulgarians, reckoned on the religious basis but
not on the linguistic one:
Table 2. Macedonian Christian Population in 1906
Orthodox Greeks
Orthodox Bulgarians
Orthodox Serbs
648,962
557,734
167,601
According to Elisabeth Barker, 50 percent of the estimated number of
"Orthodox Greeks" were in fact ethnic Slavs but who lived under the juris-
diction of the Greek Patriarchate in Constantinople. Nevertheless, the domi-
nance of Bulgarians over Serbs is clearly visible.
18
We have to stress that from the time of the Ottoman authority there are no
reliable statistics with regard to Macedonia's population. Substantial changes
in numbers of Macedonia's inhabitants were caused by the Balkan Wars
1912-13. According to the British Foreign Office's (London) papers and
documents (including and reports from Macedonia) from 1918 it can be con-
cluded that just before the First Balkan War started (October 1912) the esti-
mated numbers of Macedonia's populations were the following:
18
J. Pettifer, The New Macedonian Question, (New York: Palgrave, 2001 ), 6.
24 Vladislav B. Sotirovic
Table 3. Macedonia's Total Population in Autumn of 1912
Slavs 1,150,000
Turks 400,000
Greeks 300,000
Vlachs 200,000
Albanians 120,000
Jews 100,000
Gypsies 10,000
Among all nations living in Macedonia (and the Balkans) only the Alb
nians held to the claim of being autochthonous people in this region, howev
scientifically wrong and politicized.
19
The southern Albanian tribes-t
Tosks-are believed to be the lineal descendants of the ancient region of E]
rus. However, their northern compatriots-the Ghegs-wrongly claimed to
descendants of the ancient Illyrians who in fact were probably the Sla,
Serbs and the only aboriginal Balkan inhabitants.
20
Macedonia and the National Aspirations of the Greeks, Bulgarians,
Albanians, and Serbs
National aspirations towards the territory of geographic-historic Macedo
and Macedonia's inhabitants by the Serbs, Albanians, Bulgarians, and Gre1
from 1878 to 1912 were based on two crucial rights: historic and ethnic 011
All of them claimed that from a historical point of view Macedonia in whc
or some of her regions, had been parts of their owrt national states in
past-in the Middle Ages before the Ottoman occupation of the Balk<
They also declared that from an ethnic point of view the inhabitants of Ma
donia were actually their ethnic and cultural compatriots who spoke a spe'
dialect of their owrt national language. Finally, all of Macedonia's neight
were constantly pretending to prove and convince the great European p o ~
19
According to several reliable Byzantine and other medieval sources, Balkan Albanians c
to Europe-island of Sicily-from the Caucasus' Albania in the 9th century. In the ye:
1043 they emigrated from Sicily to present-day central Albania (e.g., M. Ataliota, Co
Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae, [Bonn: Weber, 1853], 18). This fact is recognized and b ~
banian historians Stefang Pallo and Arben Puto (S. Pallo and A. Puto, The History of Alb,
[London: Routledge and Kegan, 1981], 37).
20
I. J. Deretic, P. D. Antic, and M. C. Jarcevic, IzmiSljeno doseljavanje Srba, (Belg
Sardonija, 2009):
IVIG'--'--UVIIIU l..I'--Ll'l''--'-11 '-'''-'-'''f '-''"''J;OAIII.AIIf ' o . , ~ ~ ' ' ' . . . , . ' ' f ...,. ,, ...., .... .._.- - - r -- --
that their historical and ethnolinguistic rights were deeper, stronger, and more
justifiable in comparison to the same rights claimed by the others.
21
The Greek Case
The Greeks were the strongest legitimists (in other words, having the strong-
est legitimate claims) upon the territory and peoples of Macedonia. The Bul-
. garians asserted that the Macedonians were Slavs speaking a west-Bulgarian
dialect and for that reason they were ethnic Bulgarians. However, Greek
propaganda was more developed at the beginning of the agitation. Actually,
Greek propaganda went into abstractions because it operated with the term
"Hellenism."
22
The Greek thesis was that during the time of Alexander the
Great Macedonia already belonged to the Hellenistic cultural-linguistic sphere
of influence.
23
The reason why Hellenism was chosen instead of the Greek
basis is understandable since we know that in classical times the Greeks, like
Demosthenes (384-322 BC), considered the Macedonians as barbarians and
not as Greeks. In addition, the Greeks of antiquity had only a few isolated
colonies on the Macedonian coast. Aristotle (384-322 BC) became a crucial
connection link between Greekdom and Hellenism, as the chosen form of
propaganda-a philosopher who won the Kingdom of Macedonia for Hellen-
ism when he gave lessons to Philip's son, Alexander (later "the Great"). The
Greek theory in dealing with the period of Philip of Macedon and Alexander
the Great included both of them into Greekdom as a consequence of two his-
torical facts: (i) the royal family of Macedon perceived itself as Greek in cul-
ture, and (ii) the Macedonian nobility was from intellectual and cultural points
. of view completely Hellenized. In short, the matter of spiritual life was taken
into consideration as a crucial point of determination of Greek nationhood.
21
Probably, the best example of this "fight of rights" is the Bulgarian-Serbian case from 1913
when both sides sent to Paris separate ethnographical maps of Macedonia done by respected
academicians. The Bulgarian point of view was presented by Vasil Kanchov's map (all Mace-
donia's Slavs are ethnic Bulgarians) while the Serbian point was represented by Jovan Cvijic's
map (Macedonia's Slavs are composed by "Serbo-Croats", Bulgarians, and "Slavs of Mace-
donia"). Both maps are printed as appendices in: International Commission to Inquire into the
Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars, The Other Balkan Wars: 1914 Carnegie Endowment
RepoH of the International Commission to Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan
Wars/introduction with reflections on the present conflict by George F. Kennan, (Washington,
D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1993).
22 .
H. N. Brailsford, Macedonia: Its Races and Their Future, (New York: Amo Press and The
New York Times, 1971), 194.
23
See, for instance, the book The Falsification of Macedonian History, (Athens: Ikaros, 1984),
Written by Nicolaos K. Martis, especially 20-53.
26 Vladislav B. Sotirovic
The next step in formulation of Greek claims over Macedonia was to link
Hellenism, which actually had an Athenian cultural background, with the
Byzantine Empire (330-1453}---a medieval universal empire proclaimed by
Greek historians to be a Greek national state in the Middle Ages. Regardless
of the fact that during ten centuries of Byzantine history Macedonia was ruled
not exclusively by Constantinople but also by foreigners such as Serbian and
Bulgarian kings and emperors and even by Frankish (Latin) kings (during
some periods of the Latin Empire, 1204-61). However, according to Greek
propaganda, the only legitimate overlord of Macedonia was Byzantium, and
Byzantium had been claimed as a Greek national state as its official language
was Greek and its cultural life was based on Hellenism.
24
A whole period of
Byzantine history was always considered as part of Greek national history. A
chief propagator of Hellenistic culture during the Byzantine period and even
later became the Greek Orthodox Church (with a headquarters in Constanti-
nople). This institution Hellenized and de facto civilized the people under its
own administrative jurisdiction and influence such as some of the Macedo-
nian Slavs, Albanians from Western Macedonia, Southern Albania, and
Northern Epirus, and Vlachs who became in the course of time "Hellenized"
Greeks. The Greek Orthodox Church actually became a principal link be-
tween ancient and medieval Greek history and culture in which Hellenism
was a most significant and remarkable "national" point. While the first Turk-
ish sultans destroyed the Byzantine Empire and its administrative and social
system (after 1453) they gladly tolerated the Greek Orthodox Church
25
until
1821 and the start of the "Greek Revolution and War of Independence."
A center of the Greek Patriarchate was a Phanar, a "Greek" quarter ir
Constantinople/Istanbul, where a new Greek aristocracy emerged. The so
called "Phanariots" (Phanar's Greeks) were always chosen to goven
Moldavia and Wallachia from the beginning of the 18th century untill821,
2
24
The fact is that although the Latin West recognized the Byzantine claim to the ancier
Roman legacy for several centuries, after Roman-Catholic Pope Leo III (795-816) crowne
Charles the Great, king of the Franks, as the "Roman Emperor" on December 25th, 800, an a<
which eventually led to the formation of the Holy Roman Empire (962-1806), the Latin We:
started to favor the Franks and began to refer to Byzantium or the "Eastern Roman Empire
largely as the Empire of the Greeks (Imperium Graecorum ), Royal Historical Societ:
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society: Sixth Series. (Cambridge: Cambridge Universi1
Press, 2001), 75. However, Byzantium was overwhelmingly multinational with ethnic Greel
as a minority.
25
L. S. Stavrianos, The Balfalns since !453, (New York: Rinehart and Company, Inc., 1958
59-62.
26
W. K. Treptow ed., A History of Romania, ( l a ~ i : The Center for Romanian Studies, T1
Romanian Cultural Foundation, 1996), 203-11.
/V,dL.CUVIIIQ lJ'--\.VV'-.._.,, ...._..,...._.....,,.,., ._,...,,h'""''.,..''l u .......... ,,,._,., .... . . _ --- - - , -
and they had the position of "dragomans" of the Sublime Porte and Ottoman
fleetY A higher ecclesiastical clergy in Macedonia, particularly in the central
part of this region, were Phanariot-Greeks who in fact conducted the affairs of
the Orthodox Church in the area as Macedonia exclusively belonged to the
Greek Orthodox Church in Constantinople until . 1870. They finally extin-
guished the Serbian Patriarchate of Pee (in Turkish Ipek-a town in Metohija)
in 1766 and the Bulgarian Patriarchate of Ochrida in 1767 and completely
replaced the higher Orthodox clergy with Phanariot-Greek speaking priests.
Subsequently, from 1766/1767 until 1870 the Greek language was the lan-
guage of the church within the entire territory of historic-geographic Macedo-
nia. However, even before 1766/1767 many of the most significant hierar-
chical posts in the Orthodox Church in Macedonia and the Eastern Balkans
had been given to the Greeks, and their power was unquestioned by the
Sublime Porte until the early decades of the 19th century when the "Greek
Revolution and War of Independence" (1821-29) took place and caused the
Ottoman central authority to suspect the loyalty of their Phanariot-Greek civil
servants. Nevertheless, during the main period of Ottoman rule Macedonia
and her Christian believers
28
were placed under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction
and control by the Phanariot-Greeks and their Patriarchate in Constantinople
(until 1870). When the Slavic (Serbian and Bulgarian) church organizations
disappeared from Macedonia "everywhere the Greek Bishops, as intolerant as
they were corrupt, crushed out the national consciousness, the language, and
the intellectual life of their Slav flocks."
29
Under the Phanariot's control of
church affairs the official church language became the Greek one, i.e., a lan-
guage in which church services were held. Slavic letters were forbidden, and
even Slavic libraries in the old monasteries were burned by the Greek bishops.
As a result, the process of Hellenization in Macedonia which was continuing
and at the same time became the most significant argument for the Greek
claims to Macedonia, her culture, and people.
30
The Greeks also claimed that
the Eastern Christian (Orthodox) Church was a Greek one and for three centu-
27 .
V. Popovtc, lstocno pitanje, (Belgrade: Izdavacka knjiiarnica Gece Kona), 1928 see chapter
propadanje Turcke i budenje krajem XVI i pocetkom XVII veka,"
61-67; G. Castellan, History of the Balkans from Mohammed the Conqueror to Stalin, (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 145-55, 248-63.
28 I .
t Is no matter what their native language or ethnic background are: all of them are classified
by the Ottoman authorities as the "Greeks" since the Ottomans divided their subjects according
to the confession (milet system).
29B .
ratlsford, 196.
30
See, for instance, Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Po1itishes Archiv, Vienna, "Circular Jetter in
Greek langu.age, addressed by Greek Archbiship Philaretos to the priests and the population of
Vakouphokhoria, Koritsa", September 20th, 1892, 14/21, Albanien 13/18.
28 Vladislav B. SotiroviC
ries in fact they monopolized the culture of the Eastern Balkans. All in all, the
Greek ecclesiastical hierarchy, supported by Greek national propaganda,
claimed that all Macedonia's Orthodox populations were Greek because the
Orthodox believers in Macedonia belonged to the Greek Patriarchate in
Constantinople.
The framework of Greek nationalism and "rights" to Macedonia was fi-
nally shaped when Greek intellectuals adopted Giuseppe Mazzini' s ("Soul of
Italy," 1805-72) idealistic concept of nationalism that claims that nationality
is a spiritual but not an ethnological fact. Accordingly, all Macedonian popu-
lations who used the Greek language, at least for scientific or cultural pur-
poses, and who were under Greek cultural influence, belonged intellectually-
spiritually to Greekdom.
31
In other words, all of Macedonia's Hellenized
population was claimed as Greek. Thus, in Greek eyes Hellenism played a
crucial cultural role in the Balkans. Generally, the Greek "Megali Idea," a
concept of the re-creation of the Byzantine Empire as "Megala Hellada,"
claimed Macedonia as part of Greekdom on the basis of history (historical
rights) as well as on the basis of culture (spiritual life and language), in one
word on the basis of Hellenism.
32
A definition of the territory of Macedonia for Greek propaganda meant in
a majority of cases two Ottoman vilayets: Vilayet of Salonika (Salonica!
Thessaloniki) and Vilajet of Monastir (Bitolj/Bitola). The latter included
purely Albanian districts of Elbasan and Koritza (Korc;e), where many Chris-
tians, although they attended Greek Orthodox schools, were actually ethnic
Albanians. However, the modem Greek vision of Macedonia excludes the
Vilayet of Skopje because only few Greek families lived there. With the ex-
ception of Albanian- and Serb-language speakers in the west of the vilayet, it
was entirely populated by Macedonia's Slavs whose language was most sim-
ilar to Bulgarian.
33
31
Using this model of spiritual-cultural nationdom the Italians claimed after the ltaliar
unification in 1861 all Italian-speaking population of !stria, Dalmatia, and Adriatic islands ru
"Italians" including and their Italian-language written culture as "Italian."
32
See more about "Megali Idea" in 3rd chapter under the headline ''Nation Building, the 'Grea
Idea,' and National Schism 1831-1922" in R. Clogg, A Concise History of Greece
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 47-99.
33
This is mainly a result of activities of Bulgarian church and school authorities on systemati
Bulgarization of Macedonia and her people through well-coordinated policies of the Bulgaria1
church (Exarchate), education system, and fmally different economic privileges extended to th
local population of Macedonia from 1870 to 1912.
The Bulgarian Case
Bulgarian propaganda and claims upon Macedonia had two aspects and levels
of requirements. The first was historical, in other words, one of state rights
over Macedonia, while the second one was an ethnolinguistic one that viewed
the Slavic people of Macedonia as ethnolinguistic Bulgarians who had been
speaking "western" (i.e., Macedonian) dialect of Bulgarian language.
Bulgarian claims of "historical rights" to the area of Macedonia, that also
included Albanian populated Western Macedonia, can be traced to 864 when
the territory of Macedonia was given to the Bulgarian khan/prince Boris I
(852-89) as a gift for his acceptance of Christianity from Constantinople.
Macedonia was later put under the jurisdiction of the independent Bulgarian
Orthodox Church. However, the Bulgarian theory was going deeper into the
past than it was the case with the year 864. Namely, Bulgarian claims to Mac-
edonia, according to "historical rights," are also based on some very disputa-
ble information given by Byzantine historians with regard to the Slavic at-
tacks on the Balkan Peninsula (the 6th century), their settlement in the
Balkans (the 6th century), or settlement of the Proto-Bulgars Maurus and
Kouber in the Bitola plain (the 7th century). In other words, Slavic tribes in-
vading and settling Macedonia in the 6th century are seen exclusively as Bul-
garian regardless of the fact that the Byzantine sources did not mention ethnic
nationality or nationalities of these tribes. In addition, according to Bulgarian
scholars, it is important to note that taxes were being paid to "Bulgarian" (i.e.,
Scythian) people by some inhabitants on the plain of Salonica (the 9th-10th
centuries).
34
We have to remark that dealing with this historical source, how-
ever, Bulgarian scholars unjustifiably appropriated ancient Scythians as "Bul-
garians." Further, Bulgarian historiography claims both (i) that the cultural
mission in Macedonia of Kliment, Nahum, and Angelarius was "Bulgarian"
and (ii) that the famous Literary School in Ochrida from the early Middle
Ages had belonged to the "Bulgarian" national and cultural inheritance. These
two claims are based only on the fact that these three pupils of the "Slavic
apostles" (the Greeks Cyril and Methodius) were sent to Macedonia by Bul-
garian ruler Boris I. In addition, one of the most important monasteries in
Macedonia, in Ochrida, was claimed to be a national Bulgarian one since the
34 "I
nfonnation from Procopius Ceasarienses about a Slav attack on the Balkan Peninsula, in
the region ofNis and Thessalonica," 19, "Information from John of Ephesus on the settlement
of Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula," 20, "Information about the miracle of St Demetrius of
and the settlement of the Proto-Bulgars Maurus and Kouber in the Bitola plain,"
1
1
'. lnfonnation from the Byzantine writer Ioannes Cameniata about some settlements on the
of Thessalonica paying taxes to the Bulgarian people," 22, in Bulgarian Academy of
Cience, Macedonia: Documents and Material, (Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1978).
30 Vladislav B. Sotirovic
monastery and church were built in the town of Ochrida on the orders of the
Bulgarian prince Boris I (the lOth century).
35
It is extremely important to note
that at the turn of the 20th century a wider hinterland of Ochrida (Ohrid) was
settled by a significant number of ethnic Albanians and that this area was con-
sidered by Albanian nationalists since the time of the First League of Prizren
(1878) as exclusively Albanian national land and as a part of Greater (united)
Albania. As a result, both the Bulgarians and Albanians, as well as Serbian
and Greek nationalists, claimed the area of Ochrida as their own national ter-
ritory that had to be incorporated into a national state of their own.
The Bulgarian theory on Macedonia's national identity overwhelmingly
accepted and stressed the fact that Macedonia was inside the borders of a Bul-
garian state enlarged by the first Bulgarian Emperor, Simeon (893-927).
Within a framework of Bulgarian claims with regard to the question of Mace-
donia's identity during the Middle Ages, the cases of Emperor Samuilo and
Ivan Vladislav are the most subject to dispute. According to Bulgarian histo-
riography, "Samuilo's Uprising", 976-1014, was a Bulgarian national rebel-
lion.36 The theory is founded on the fact that these two emperors were noble-
men of Bulgarian origin.
37
Moreover, their state was considered by Bulgarian
scholars as the last Bulgarian independent state after the conquest of the main
part of Bulgaria by Byzantium in 971. A newly established Byzantine Arch-
bishopric of Ochrida in 1 018, by Byzantine Emperor Basil II ("Killer of Bul-
garians", 97 6-1 025), is also considered as the Bulgarian national church and
called by Bulgarian nationalists the Archbishopric of Bulgaria.
38
It is a fact
that among Bulgarian nationalists and nationalistic propaganda on Macedonia
the Archbishopric of Ochrida was always understood as Bulgarian and its
Archbishop as the Archbishop of Bulgaria. However, the cases of two "Bul-
35
Ibid, "Excerpt from the Second Life of Nahum Concerning the Arrival of the Disciples of
Cyril and Methodius in the Bulgarian lands, and the Big Monastery and Church Built by
Nahum in Ohrid on the Orders of the Bulgarian Tsar Boris," 22; Bulgarian Academy of
Science, Information Bulgaria: A Short Encycfopedia of the People's Republic of Bulgaria,
(Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1985), 153.
36
V. Zlatarski, Istorija na biilgars!Jta diiriava prez Srednite vekove. Vol. 1 Parvo balgarsko
carstvo, Pt. 2 Ot slavjanizacijata na dariavata do padaneto na Parvoto carstvo (852-1018), 2 ed.
(Sofia: Nauka i izkustvo, 1971; P. Petrov, Obrazuvane i ukrepvane na zapadnata Biilgarska
diiriava, G o d i ~ n i k na Sofijskija universitet (FlF) 53:2 (1959), 135-90.
37
"Information by the Byzantine-writer Cecaumenus about the Bulgarians in Macedonia and
about the Bulgarian tsars Samuil and Ivan Vladislav," Macedonia: Documents and Material,
(Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Science, 1978), 27.
38
"Charters Granted by the Byzantine Emperor Basil II to the Bulgarian Church After hi1
Conquest of Bulgaria," Macedonia: Documents and Material, (Sofia: Bulgarian Academy o:
Science, 1978), 30.
L
JV\a\...'t:UVIIIQ U\...LYY\...\... 1 1 '-'''-'"-''! ....,._.,f't\.ol. 0 0\.ol. 10 t '.,..,._..., ,,..,. ,,, ...,.,, ...., --- - - - "
garian" uprisings against the Byzantine authorities in the 11th century under
the leadership of Peter Delyan (1 040-41) and Georgi Voyteh (1 072) are also
very problematic with regard to Bulgarian claims upon Macedonia and her
Slavic inhabitants.
39
Bulgarian territorial-national aspirations upon Macedonia in modem
times basically have been derived from two historical events relating to 19th
century Bulgarian history: the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate in
1870 by the Ottoman sultan, and the creation of the Great Bulgaria in 1878
according to the "St. Stefano Peace Treaty" by the Russian authorities.
One of the most considerable goals of the Bulgarian struggle for libera-
tion from Ottoman rule was to gain independence for the national church from
the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople. In fact, the movement for the crea-
tion of the Bulgarian independent Church was enormously strengthened by
the resentment caused by the sultan's abolition of the Patriarchate of Ochrida,
which covered the dioceses of Macedonia and Western Bulgaria. The
Patriarchate or Archbishopric of Ochrida was always understood by Bulgarian
political authorities as the Bulgarian national church. Nevertheless, both the
establishment of the (Ottoman) Bulgarian Exarchate and creation of (Russian)
Greater Bulgaria directly affected Greek, Serbian, and Albanian national aspi-
rations, plans, and struggles for united national states of their own.
The Bulgarian struggle for an independent national church was achieved
when the Ottoman sultan issued a special.firman (sultan's decree) on March
11th, 1870. By thisfirman, the Bulgarian independent Exarchate was created,
which included Eastern Bulgaria, Dobrudja, Pirot, and NiS in the west, and
one Macedonian diocese (Veles). With regard to Bulgarian aspirations to-
wards Macedonia as well as in general with regard to Bulgarian demands
concerning the creation of Greater Bulgaria on the Balkan Peninsula, the cre-
ation of the Bulgarian Exarchate exerted a tremendous impact on the national
ideology of the Bulgarian people who initiated strong propaganda followed by
political actions intended to put all of historical-geographic Macedonia under
the jurisdiction of the Exarchate. According to this propaganda and later po-
litical action, the total area of Macedonia was seen as a part of a united Bul-
garian national church-Exarchate. Actually, the creation of the Bulgarian
Exarchate had a basic impact on Bulgarian nationalistic propaganda on the
area of Macedonia, but at the same time it inspired severe disputes between
39"Th
e Byzantine Historian Scylitzes Describes the Uprising of the Bulgarians Under the
Leadership of Peter Delyan," 49, "The Byzantine historian Scylitzes Describes the Uprising of
the Bulgarians Under the Leadership of Georgi Voyteh in 1072," 53, Macedonia: Documents
and Material, (Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Science, 1978).
32 Vladislav B. Sotirovic
Bulgarian, Albanian, Serbian, and Greek national claims over the same area
of Macedonia.
The founding of the Bulgarian Exarchate by the Ottoman authorities in
1870, and Russian diplomatic attempts to establish a Greater Bulgaria in
March 1878, gave the strongest impetus to Bulgarian politicians to create in
the future a united national Bulgarian state based on ethnic and historical
rights of the Bulgarian people. The Russian-Ottoman War of 1877-78, ended
after the Russian spectacular military successes against the Ottoman army on
the Balkan battlefield with the signing of the "St. Stefano Peace Treaty" on
February 19th/March 3rd, 1878. The crucial point of this treaty was the estab-
lishment of an independent Bulgarian state which was designed by St. Peters-
burg as a Russian client-state on the Balkan Peninsula. According to this Rus-
sian great Bulgarian project, the whole of Macedonia was included into St.
Stefano Bulgaria. The borders of this Bulgaria were drawn on the southwest
beyond Debar, Ochrida, Kastoria, Korcha with entrance to the Aegean Sea,
but without Salonica. The whole course of the Vardar River was to be in-
cluded into the Bulgarian state and in such a way so that the Bulgarian nation-
alistic dreams regarding Macedonia based on both historical and ethnolin-
guistic rights would be realized.
We can conclude that the Russian attempt to incorporate Macedonia into
St. Stefano Bulgaria and the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate were
crucial and most influential historical events with respect to future Bulgarian
nationalistic aspirations regarding Macedonia.
The Albanian Case
Historically, Albanian national requirements to include parts of Macedoni:
into a united national state, or a single Albanian province within the Ottoma1
Empire, date from the time of the so-called First League of Prizren. A basi,
requirement of the First League of Prizren, or Albanian League, which existe
from 1878 to 1881, and which at the same time became the main p o l i t i c ~
program for subsequent generations of Albanian political-national worker
and ideologists, was that the four vilayets of Bitola, Ioanina, Scodra, and Kc
sovo (with Metohija) were to compose a single united "Albanian vilayet," or
greater Albania within the borders of the Ottoman Empire. The League's sta
ute called "Karamarne" ("The Book of Decisions") defined the borders <
Albanian national pretensions that included significant (western) parts of ge<
graphic and historic Macedonia.
40
However, the ethnolinguistic situation i
40
P. Bartl, AJbanii: Od srednjeg veka do danas, (Belgrade: CLIO, 2001), 94-97.
I .. U . .O.'-'"-''-"'\JIII\..1. tJ"-''-"''""-'"-'11 ..._,,.._.._.,,, 1..1\.Aif)UIIUIIf I \ltJUI OIUII/ Ull\...1 .......... ...,, ..... ,,
these four vilayets, according to German scholar Schanderl, was as it is shown
in the table (i.e., Albanians did not have an absolute majority):
Table 4. Population of Ioanina, Bitola, Kosovo, and Scutari Vilayets from
1877 to 1908 (in percentage):
Albanians 44%
Macedonian Slavs 19.2%
Serbs 11.4%
Greeks 9.2%
Vlachs 6.5%
Turks Osmanli 9.3%
Jews, Armenians and Gypsies 0.4%
The same author claims
41
that Macedonian confessional situation was as
follows:
Table 5. Confessional Distribution in Ottoman Vilayets of Ioanina, Kosovo,
Scutari, and Bitola, 1877-1908 (in percentage):
Orthodox
Muslims
Roman Catholics
27.8%
52.8%
15.0%
At the same time, Schandler claims that 77 percent of Albanian Muslims
out of the total Albanian population were in these four Ottoman vilayets.
42
Three of them-Scodra, Ioanina, and Bitola- were created in 1865 while the
fourth, Kosovo, subsequently. Each of these four vilayets had a large popula-
tion of non-Albanian nationalities. For instance, according to Peter Kukulj, in
1871 the Serbs were even in the majority in Kosovo and Metohija (63.6 per-
cent) in comparison to Albanian minority (32.2 percent).
43
In addition, since
41
Schanderl provides the so-called "average census," which means a single average numbers
for different categories of population.
42
H-D. Schanderl, Die Albanienpolitik Osterreich Ungarns und ltaliens 1877-1908,
(Wiesbaden: 1971), 9-10.
43
P. Kukulj , Das Furstentum Serbien und Turkisch Serbien: Eine militiir-geographische
Skizze, (Vienna, 1871).

34 Vladislav B. Sotirovic
the majority of the Albanian population was Muslim, the central Ottomar
authorities regarded them as Ottomans.
An extension of Albanian territorial pretensions with respect to Ancien
(Old) Serbia and Macedonia in the territories where the Albanian populatior
was not in the majority, was one of the crucial sources for friction and strug
gle between Albanian political organizations on the one hand and two Serbiat
independent states, Montenegro and Serbia, on the other. According to the
programs of both Albanian leagues, that is of Prizren and Ipek (Pee), a nev
Albanian either autonomous province within the Ottoman Empire or ulti
mately independent state had to consist of four principalities: (i) Southern Al
bania with Epirus and the city of Ioanina, (ii) Northern and Central Albani
with the areas around Scodra (Scutari), Tirana (Tirane), and Elbasan, (iii
Macedonia with the cities of Debar, Skopje, Gostivar, Prilep, Veles, Bitol::
and Ohrid, and (iv) Ancient Serbia (Kosovo and Metohija,
and Vardar Macedonia) with the cities/towns of Prizren, Gnjilane, Pe<
Dakovica, Mitrovica, Pristina, Kumanovo, Novi Pazar, and Sjenica.
44
Th
decisions of the international community (i.e., "Great Powers") concemin
Balkan affairs contributed as well to the interethnic frictions between the A
banians and their neighbors at the tur:n of the 20th century. Both of the inteJ
national treaties of 1878, San Stefano and Berlin, handed over certain lane
populated by the Albanians at that time to the other states. According to A
banian historiography, the inability of the Ottoman government to protect tt.
interests of the Albanians of whom 70 percent were of Muslim faith ar
mainly loyal Ottoman subjects,
45
compelled the Albanians from Kosovo ar
Metohija, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Epirus, to organize themselves fi
national defense and to require the status of autonomous administration of
Albanian province within a total ethnolinguistic space of Albanians. The A
banian feudal aristocracy opposed the sultan's (Abdiilmecid, 1839-61) pr
gram of reforms-Tanzimat (meaning "reorganization"), as did the Bosnia
Herzegovinian nobles of Muslim faith.
46
Both of them resented officials se
to their provinces from Istanbul preferring to be governed by their own a
ministrations composed of local Muslim feudal lords-begs. Albanians a1
Bosnian-Herzegovinian Muslims as well did not support military reforr
based on general recruitment for the purpose of creating a modem and mo
44
B. Stuli, Albansko pitanje 1878-82, (Zagreb: JAZU, 1959), 321-23; H. Hofbau
Eksperiment Kosovo: Povratak kolonijalizma, (Belgrade: Albatros plus, 2009), 40-43.
45
The sultan Abdul Hamid Il (1876-1909) had very high opinion about a loyalty of Musl
Albanians. For that reason, the sultan' s personal bodyguard was made primarily by Musl
Albanians.
46
V. Popovic, Jstocno pitanje, (Belgrade: Izdavaclca knjizarnica Gece Kona, 1928), 146-49.
IYIQ\,....:;:;-UVIIIQ lJ\:.t.YY\...\...11 '-II\,...\,..."/ lJU lf,C.ll 10.1 1
1
I \IUUIIIU.IIt UIIU ._.,.._..IIJII..411 I ...... , ...... ,I-'
effective Ottoman army. The Albanians wished to retain traditional proce-
dures of recruitment and to be led into battle by their own military leaders.
Finally, when the Albanian national-political leadership proclaimed on No-
vember 28th, 1912 an independent state of Albania in the city of Valona they
required that the international community recognize the borders of new Alba-
nia according to the programes of both Albanian Prizren and Pee leagues.
The Serbian Case
Serbian claims upon the destiny of Macedonia and her inhabitants were radi-
cally different in comparison to the Bulgarian case because Serbian demands
were mainly based on "historical rights," but not and/or ethnolinguistic ones.
Serbian political propaganda did not insist as much upon "ethnic rights" to
Macedonia, while at the same time its "historical rights" were based exclu-
sively on medieval Serbian history when the Serbian state reached a climax of
its glory during a short period known as the time of the Serbian Empire (from
1349 to 1371).
47
Serbian neglect of their "ethnic rights" to the biggest part of Macedonia
was based primarily on scientific research done and works published by a
leading Serbian 19th century philologist, Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic,
(1787-1864) who followed the main idea and principal of ethnic identity-
language.48 The fact was that differences between literary Serbian and Bulgar-
ian were not considerable, but they were very definite. The Macedonian dia-
lect (speech) actually is neither one nor the other; "but in certain structural
features it agrees rather with Bulgarian than with Serbian."
49
Obviously the
language of the Macedonian Slavs was more similar to Bulgarian than to Ser-
bian, a fact which was stressed by large numbers of travelers, merchants,
diplomats, scientists, etc., passing throughout Macedonia at the tum of the
20th century and left in their memoirs or other observations referring to the
land and inhabitants of Macedonia.
If we speak about Serbian "historical rights" to Macedonia we have to
stress first one fact in regard to Serbian practical political propaganda activi-
ties. Namely, Serbia's practical political interest in Macedonia was much later
than that of Bulgaria. Up to the time of the Austro-Hungarian occupation of
47
48
SeeM. Stevanovic, carstvo, (Belgrade: .Knjiga-komerc, 2001).
V. Stefanovic Karadic, "Srbi svi i svuda," Kovceiic za istoriju, jezik, i obicaje Srba sva tri
zakona, vol. 1 (Vienna, 1849); B. V. Sotirovic, Lingvisticki model definisanja srpske nacije
Stefanovii:a Karadiica i projekat Jlije Garasanina o stvaranju lingvisticki odreilene
Srba, (Vilnius: Vilniaus universiteto leidykla, 2006).
Brailsford, 101.
36 Vladislav B. Sotirovic
Bosnia and Herzegovina in July 1878 the ambitions of the Serbian state and
its foreign policy were directed primarily toward these two Ottoman prov-
inces, but not toward Macedonia for the very reason that it was an accepted
fact by Belgrade that the majority of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian population
was Serbian in both ethnic origin and language regardless of any confessional
division (Orthodox, Catholics, and Muslims). However, after the Treaty of
Berlin in 1878 (July 13th) Belgrade realized that Bosnia and Herzegovina had
been for the time being excluded from the plan of creating a single Serbian
national state.
5
For that reason, Belgrade wished to repair its national failure
from the years of the Great Eastern Crisis, 1875-78, but it was late concerning
Macedonia as: Bulgarians had already created their national church (frorr
1870); the majority ofMacedonian Slavs had already adhered to the Bulgariar
Exarchate and thus became Bulgarized; and Bulgarian schools were firml)
established and thoroughly popular on the soil of Macedonia.
Finally, Serbia had suffered a disastrous military defeat at the Slivnic:
River in Western Bulgaria in 1885 at the hands of the Bulgarians,
51
and he
prestige in the Balkans was recovered only in 1913 after the Balkan War
(1912-13). All in all, Serbia's both official propaganda and secret nationa
work were mainly directed to the areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina (accordin:
to "ethnic" rights) before 1878, but after the Congress of Berlin Serbia had
chance to enlarge its territory only towards the south (according to "historic
rights) by annexation of Macedonia or (according to both "ethnic" and "hi1
toric" rights) by absorption of Kosovo and Metohija, but surely not any fw
ther toward the west (Bosnia and Herzegovina).
Serbian claims on the territory of Macedonia based on "historical right1
(i.e., the state rights) were grounded on several historical facts coming from
national medieval history as well as Bulgarian historical claims. For the fir
time in Serbian history a large part of Macedonia was included within tl
state borders of medieval Serbia in 1382 when the Serbian king Milut
(1382-21) occupied and annexed a northern portion of geographic-histor
Macedonia and proclaimed the city of Skopje as the new capital of Serbi
This military acquisition, the largest one in Serbian history at the time, w
approved by the Byzantine emperor in 1299 when king Milutin married t1
Byzantine princess Simonida, a marriage which brought him the annex
portion of Macedonia as dowry. The period of the realm of the Serbian et
peror Stefan Dusan (1331-55) was most important in dealing with the "h
50
About 1he project seeR. L j u ~ j c , Knjiga a Nacertaniju, (Belgrade: BIGZ, 1993).
51
About the Serbian-Bulgarian War of 1885-86 see, for instance, S. Jovanovic, Srps
bugarski rat: Rasprava iz diplomatske istorije, (Belgrade, 1901), and M. Milovano
Plovdivski prevram i srpsko-bugarski rat, vol. 24, (Belgrade: De1o, 1902) 5-21.
/VId\...t=UUIIIQ 1./C:lVYc;"C::II '-JICCf\.1 LIUij=)CliiO.II/IUUUIIIt.l l l/ UIIU ..J'-IIJIUII 1 ....op , ,...,..,,....,.,, ...
ical rights" of Serbian nationalistic propaganda and work on Macedonia.
mely, this ruler conquered a large portion of the Byzantine Empire from
45 to 1348 and established the largest Serbian state in history, which ex-
,ded from the Sava and Danube Rivers to the Gulf of Corinth and from the
ina River to the Mesta River. At that time the whole of Macedonia was
thin the borders of the Serbian state (present day V ardar Macedonia, Pirin
tcedonia, and Aegean Macedonia). The capital of the state continued to be
:city of Skopje where three significant political events occurred with refer-
to Serbian medieval history. Namely, in Skopje in 1346 the Serbian Pa-
trchate was proclaimed, the Serbian ruler was crowned emperor, and the
,st important Serbian law-codex (Dusanov zakonik) was proclaimed.
52
ese facts were crucial ones for future Serbian nationalistic propaganda:
opje was the capital of the glorious Serbian Empire where the ruler was
,wned as emperor and where the supreme state law-codex was proclaimed.
)reover, the most extreme Serbian nationalistic wishes and intentions were
>ed on recovering the medieval Serbian empire in which Macedonia would
the geographic, political, and cultural center. The extent of such aspirations
1S exemplified in Belgrade in 1873 with the printing of a historical-ethno-
map of all Serbian territories, drawn by Milos Milojevic, in which
J.cedonia was appropriated to Serbdom. Moreover, the map was followed
united coats of arms of all Serbian lands consisting of 24 heraldic symbols,
representing one Serbian historic-ethnolinguistic territory in the Bai-
ns. Among these united coats of arms of all Serbia there were heraldic
mbols of Albania and Macedonia, as well. Actually, all Yugoslav lands and
oples were presented as Serbian ones.
53
The same ideological principle of
mbining of historical and ethnolinguistic rights was applied by Serbian
;torian, ethnologist, and geographer, Vladimir Karic,
54
in his famous book
rbia: Description of the Land and People, published in Belgrade in 1887. In
s book he presented an ethnolinguistic map of Serbdom which included
ntinental !stria, all of Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
)re than half of Vojvodina, Serbia within the borders after the Congress of
:rlin in 1878, and a major part of Montenegro, half of Kosovo and Metohija,
d more than half of the Vardar Macedonia as the lands populated exclu-
rely by the ethnic Serbs. However, outermost western part of Macedonia,
\1. Jovic and K. Radic, Srpske zemlje i vladari, za negovanje istorijskix i
1etnickix vrednosti, 1990), 68-80.
\1. Milojevic, Jstorisko-etnografsko-geografska mapa Srba i Srpskix Ougoslavenskix)
u Turskoj iAustriji, (Belgrade: Kosta Atanaskov, 1873).
<\bout Karic's work see, J. Cvijic, Vladimir Karic, i njegov geografski i nacionalni rad,
1929).
38 Vladislav B. Sotirovic
easternmost Montenegro, southeast Ra.Ska/Sandzak, westernmost Metohija,
easternmost Albania, and westernmost Kosovo were ethnicly mixed areas in-
habited by both Serbs and Albanians.
55
While the cities and lands around
Ulcinj and Scodra/Skadar/Scutari were ethnicly mixed, the city of Ohrid
(Ochrida) was populated only by Serbs. Present-day Greek (Aegean) Mace-
donia and the Vidin region in northwest Bulgaria were, according to the au-
thor, ethnicly mixed territories, too.
56
In sum, Karic understood all of
Stokavian speaking population in the Balkans to be ethnolinguistic Serbs, but
differently from Vuk Stefanovic KaradZic and Ilija Garasanin, Vladimir Karic
included the main portion of Vardar Macedonia into Serbian ethnolinguistic
space. Karic was surely right to claim that 90 percent of citizens of the King-
dom of Serbia were ethnic Serbs. He also claimed, based on historical
sources, that in the distinct past all Slavs-Czechs, Bulgarians, Russians,
Poles, Slovaks, and Lusatian Serbs (Croats were not considered as a separate
ethnicity)-were called Serbs by ancient historians, i.e., that all modem
Slavic nations are only Serbian tribes. Finally, he concluded that 1113 of all
Slavs of his day were Serbs while only 114 (23.6 percent) of all Serbs
(7,256,000 including all Croats, Bosnian-Herzegovinian Muslims, and Slavs
from Montenegro) were living in the independent Kingdom of Serbia.
57
He
pointed out that what concerned Albanians in Serbia was that only a few
"Arnauts" lived in the region of Toplica without their own villages but living
mixed in with the Serbs. They had come to this region (including Kosovo and
Metohija) only in the 18th century after one part of the Serbs emigrated from
Toplica, Kosovo and Metohija into the Habsburg Monarchy.
58
In addition,
according to the author, there were 30,000 Serbs living in Albania proper,
"westward from the River of Black Drim," and 200,000 of them in western
Bulgaria.
59
The area of Macedonia within Serbian national/nationalistic claims based
on "historical rights" was understood and woven into the term, "Ancient (Old)
Serbia" (Stara Srbija) together with Kosovo and Metohija and Raska!
SandZak. In fact, originally under the term of "Ancient Serbia," Kosovo and
Metohija were understood as the core of the medieval Serbian state with th1
capital of Prizren and with the headquarters of the Serbian medieval church in
Pee (Ipek). In every Serbian plan concerning the national revival and re-es
55
V. Karic, Srbija: Opis zemlje, naroda, i driave, (Belgrade: Kraljevsko-srpska drZa
stamparija, 1887), colored map "Karta rasprostranjenja Srba", 24Q-41.
56
Ibid, 240-41.
57
Ibid, 91- 92,242-43.
58
Ibid, 96.
59
Ibid, 243.
- -- - - - -- , - - n- . ..... .. , .................... t ............... ...... ........ ........ ._, . ..
tablishment of a Serbian state the historical basis of "Ancient Serbia" was al-
ways taken into consideration. However, from the mid 19th century it was
understood that the term "Ancient Serbia" included the area of Vardar Mace-
donia as a part of the Serbian medieval state whose re-establishment was the
highest demand of Serbian nationalists and their propaganda.
In the Serbian case, the basis of the national struggle for the establishment
of a united national state on either historic or ethnic rights, or both, was laid
down by Ilija Garasanin, Serbia's minister of the interior who wrote
"Nacertanije" (Draft) in 1844 which was actually at the beginning the secret
plan of Serbian foreign policy in the future. Regardless of the fact that the
term Macedonia purposely was not mentioned in this work,
60
Serbian
nationalists and designers of national foreign policy understood that it is very
possible to conclude that Macedonia was also taken into consideration by
Garasanin. At least, they interpreted this work as the message to later genera-
tions of Serbian policymakers that the Serbs should continue the process of
creating a great Serbian united national state, the process which started in the
Middle Ages and became temporarily interrupted by the Turks after the Ko-
sovo Battle in 1389.
Conclusion
The so-called "Macedonian Question" has been one of the most difficult
questions in the Balkans for the last 150 years. The small, landlocked territory
of Macedonia in the southern Balkans has been contested by all its four
neighbors-Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians, and Albanians during and since the
demise of the Ottoman Empire up to today.
The "Macedonian Question" (or better to say the "Question of Macedo-
nia") came on the European agenda when the Russian Empire successfully
pressured the Ottoman government in Istanbul (Constantinople) into allowing
the creation and functioning of a separate and independent ( autocephalous)
Bulgarian Exarchate (i.e., national Bulgarian Orthodox Church) with authority
extending over the biggest part of the Ottoman geographic province of Mace-
60 I .
t IS a wrong interpretation by many of both Yugoslav and Serbian historians that Ilija
in his Nacertanije included Macedonia into a united Serbian national state.
Macedonia was excluded from this project because accepted Vuk Stefanovic
KaradZic' s model of linguistic national determination of the Serbs and other South Slavs.
According to this model, only Stokavian speakers were the Serbs. However, Karad.Zic could not
prove that majority of Macedonia's population were the Stokavians (B. V. Sotirovic,
Ltngvisticki model definisanja srpske nacije Vuka Stefanovica Karadiica i projekat Ilije
Garaanina o stvaranju lingvisticki odreilene driave Srba, (Vilnius: Vilniaus universiteto
leidykla, 2006).
40
Vladislav B. Sotirovic
dania. This political decision very quickly involved the Bulgarian state in
direct clash both with Greece and Serbia along with Albanian nationalist:
However, this was not the real aim designed by St. Petersburg in 1870 an
1878 as what Russia wanted was only to extend her own political-economi
influence in the Eastern Balkans through both the Orthodox Church and su1
port of the oppressed or newly liberated Balkan Slav nations. Nevertheles
Russian political favoring of Bulgaria naturally started a bitter rivalry betwe(
Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, and Albanians for a national dominance in Macedt
nia-a rivalry which directed East Balkan nations to the clash between ea<
other during the Second Balkan War in 1913.
vsotirovicmruni.t

.
... _ ;,;:, . - . .....
Figure 1. Balkan States between 1878 and 1912
Figure 2. Ethnographic Map of Macedonia- Bulgarian Version, 1914
Figure3. Ethnographic Map ofMacedonia-Serbian Version, 1914

,.,

.
-l! .... '"""

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- ,.,....
e L.toe,. la:. tUl d
. .... JJ'Itt:'1t
0 #!'W\t<;lri S!!l


.,
s
v
,p
Das Gebiet
des bulgarischen
Exarchat
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Figure 4. Territory of Bulgarian Church Exarchate, 1878-1912
Figure 5. Russian Project of St. Stefano Bulgaria, March 1878